Pure Taste Restaurant Visit

Where: Westbourne Grove, London, W2 4UP

When: 30.12.14 at 20.00

http://puretasterestaurant.com

A while back, we got the opportunity to sponsor a Paleo-friendly restaurant in London and we jumped at the opportunity. The sponsorship package we chose gave us a starter and dessert for free, once the restaurant opened. After months of waiting, the email finally arrived announcing that Pure Taste was opening. We immediately booked ourselves a table and poured over the online menu in anticipation.

Last week, we finally ate at the Pure Taste Restaurant in West London and we were not disappointed.  Unfortunately, Cecilia is in Sweden so it was only the London contingent that could go.

We did some more soul searching over the menu and then made our choices and the waiter gave us a great recommendation for a Spanish red wine, which would go with our meaty starters and mains. Then they started us off with a complementary mise en bouche with salmon sashimi and wasabi puree. So refreshing!

Then on to the bread basket: Italian breadsticks, coconut flour flatbread with onion and cumin seeds and Rosemary plantain crackers, served with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar and tzatziki. Our favourites were the warm Italian breadsticks, which had loads of Italian spices on them, but we were really intrigued by the plantain crackers which were extra crunchy and similar to Swedish knäckebröd.

For starters Cat had the free-range charcuterie, garlic stuffed olives, sundried tomato and rocket salad and Simon had the pan fried breast of wood pigeon, roasted baby beetroot, activated walnuts and baby watercress. Both were good (charcuterie is always good), but the wood pigeon was the more interesting choice. The meat was served cold and melted in your mouth, surprisingly similar to a pork tenderloin.

The mains came next and Cat chose a pan-seared breast of wild mallard duck, celeriac rosti, sautéed kale, spiced cranberry and Clementine sauce and Simon the canon of venison, brussel sprouts with bacon, boulangere Jerusalem artichokes in a red wine jus. We were both initially a bit disappointed that the steak was sold out, but this made us a little more adventurous with our choices. The duck was beautiful, served rare. The venison as you would expect had a strong gamey taste, but worked well with the brussels and bacon.

Dessert was a very difficult decision as all the choices sounded amazing. After much consideration and help from the waiter, we ordered the sticky toffee pudding, toffee sauce and salted caramel ice cream and the spiced pear and pecan crumble with almond milk crème anglaise. By this point, we were both stuffed (Cat more so than Simon) and we both could hardly finish. The crumble with the non-dairy custard was great. The sticky toffee pudding was nicely balanced by the salted caramel ice-cream, but as we rarely eat sweet stuff anymore, it was a little bit on the sweet side.

All in all, we had a lovely evening and it was nice to be able to order from a menu without making any modifications. We have already recommended the restaurant to our friends, who will be going very soon.